I didn't want to hijack this thread.
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1676459,1676459#msg-1676459

This article hit me hard.
http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/mom-recounts-death-by-suicide-of-adult-son/article_e09d2f2e-f4cf-535e-9bbd-c5caf5937924.html

I must preface this with the fact that I didn't know Nathan or his sister very well. I was friends with Nathan's older brother and I knew my friend's older brother.

What I experienced growing up was the oldest son being worshiped. He could do no wrong. He was the golden boy and when I left Utah 15 years ago he was a seminary teacher living just down the street from his parents.

The Palmers live right next to the ward house. I grew up in a house where my parents still live just down the street from the ward house. You can see the church outside the living room windows of both of our houses.

My friend literally lived in the shadow of his elder brother. My friend's parents were fairly strict with him but probably not as strict as my parents were with me. We played together as children more at my house than his because of my controlling mother. My house is bigger and we had a much larger family than his but he had a bigger yard. Incidentally, the last time I spoke to him he expressed interest in buying my parents house. I told him they would have to be dead for him to get it.

At any rate I remember the younger two children Nathan and his sister around the neighborhood a lot. The Palmers apparently had let up on their strictness with their younger children. This was probably when Brother Palmer started having all his serious health issues. He's been dead for a long time. I think he died while I was on my mission or earlier. I don't remember but I remember Sister Palmer.

She was mean. She seemed to always be harping on my friend for something or other. He seemed to be the one who could never quite live up to his older brother's example. That was probably a connection for us - hard ass mothers.

None of us kids in the ward liked Sister Palmer. She was a grumpy and mean busybody. She was the kind of person my mother probably was thinking about when she wanted our family to be outwardly perfect. In Mormonism where I was it was all about perfect families. The pressure there was intense to raise the righteous kind of kids. I rebelled against it as a teen and a few other boys did too. Most just followed their parent's plan of salvation. And Sister Palmer was a by the book, rules harping on, difficult woman. And as you can tell from the photos not much of a looker. She never looked better than these photos even earlier in her life. She does like that color of lipstick.

Funny how all these memories come flooding back.

The point of this post is to hopefully give you a tiny clue about the pressure Nathan endured. If he wasn't 100 percent into Mormonism his family life would have been Hell. I suspect it might have been worse than mine if he had rebelled like me. What I'm reading of his rebellion, it was weak. I wonder sometimes if for some Mormons who can't fully rebel and can't fully be Mormon then suicide is a more attractive option? I did think about it quite a bit when I was slipping in 2002-2003. It would be so easy. I could cut out of life and my little family in the Mormon fantasy gets to continue without someone who just can't fit into it.

No where in the article does Mrs. Palmer mention that she loved or treasured her son. She made statement after statement listing off all the ways he failed to measure up (in her eyes). What a cold, cold woman.

Ah, the feeling of home - where love is never mentioned.

Good god, that was a shitty article. The mother sounds as clueless as hell. Poor guy.

That is so heart breaking. I love my kids, and I'm pretty hard core catholic, but i just don't think i could bring myself to be cruel to my children when they experience moments of doubt. In fact, i could find myself bitched out by my priest and potentially excommunicated for being that way, for poor stewardship of souls entrusted to my care.
When children suffer with depression, it is hard as a parent to watch them struggle and suffer. The best thing you can do is tell them that whatever they decide to believe or not believe, that you will love them because you love who they are. It's your job to help them to stop defining themselves by the standards of others, but encourage them to try to look at themselves objectively and recognize the good in themselves with as much or more belief as they see the bad. Flaws are flaws and can be improved upon. But your life is meaningful and can never be replaced. Once gone, you are gone forever, so parents should strive to encourage a healthy love for yourself, warts and all.
I feel very bad for this woman's family, and from what you said, i feel very bad for her as well. I cannot fathom being so desperate to fit in or be perfect that i would sacrifice my children's happiness to obatain that. She must be a terribly miserable and lonely woman. And I suppose it is even more sad that she chooses to be so.

My mother could have been the mother in this article if I had committed suicide in 2003-2004.

The names could have changed to our names to show the guilty.

This is a window into where I grew up and the ways of my parents. Many of these people are all on the same Kolobian wavelength. Church before family and making family fit in church.

My entire immediate family and some of my extended family are mormons still, but i guess they're good at hiding that kind of psychotic level of oppression.
Yeah, i think I'm going to hard core help missionaries now. I felt so bad for them when they would come to the door. They clearly hated it and seemed very distrustful of each other, which is sad.
You're just in this world, trying to survive life as it is, and then to have parents who go out of their way to make it even more difficult, I'm just baffled that anyone would do that to their own children and think it was a good thing. I've seen a lot of parents do a lot of horrible things to their kids, but i mean in very primitive, tribal cultures you sort of expect that. This article and your comments have really opened my eyes to be more alert when i see a church member or missionary flailing, to reach out and really just give a little love where it seems like it's very desperately needed. It's the least i could do. It makes me just want to gather all of these kids and take them away to a safe place and just love them. Love seems to be a very conditional thing throughout the entire mormon enterprise. What a terrible existence.

truorderofawesome Wrote:
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> What a terrible existence.

Knowing your whole life that your value for your parents and family lay in the worth of your soul's eternal progression potentiality instead of your life is pretty soul crushing.

I have never been more happy to have gotten out. I'm so grateful that my children will never have to struggle with wondering whether i will always love them or not.
I knew my oarents love was entirely conditional, but i always attributed that to their not being good, healthy people. But this is institutionalized emotional abuse. That is so sad.

You are right. Who can live up to eternal expectations? It is emotionally abusing to make expectations eternal, absolutist, rigid, and inhumane and telling members that they need to meet these standards or else their souls are lost forever.

The icing on the Mormon cake is how the institution of Mormonism can act with impunity in changing the standards they have for themselves as an institution.

It is the height of hypocrisy.

How can you ever achieve perfection if the path is an ever evolving lanscape?
Geez...i feel like an idiot. I've spent my life helping women and children escape this kind of stuff, and i had no idea how bad it was. And it's right here...
Still, you can't help people who don't want it, but only open the door for escape.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2015 03:41PM by truorderofawesome.

OMG,
The article made me want to throw up.

I hope the man is at peace.

That article was painful to read on many levels.

"Mom" seems to take a detached view of her son's life and struggles, like she was just an observer and not a participant. Perhaps some people here with experience in counseling or mental health can comment on this? It just seems really "off".

Is she perhaps attempting to minimize her role in his life (and thus the ending of his life)?

She says “The look in his eyes changed from saint to sinner to devil.” How convenient, when trying to explain away why her son wouldn't hug her...

She further states that "One day his friend was outside during the break. Nathan went out to find him. He was outside by the Dumpsters. He had found some pornographic magazines.
“Up until that time he was a very, very good young man. He knew it was wrong. We hadn’t heard that one time could click it off. He tried to fight it.”

Ah, here we have it. Looking at an adult magazine one time changed him forever, from being a "very, very good young man" to....what? She seems to parse together disparate elements of her son's life so that his situation fits an overly simplistic, "early morning seminary" style of contrived narrative, where one little thing leads to doom. (And conveniently removes any culpability she might have).

His challenges couldn't possibly have anything to do with the type of parenting he received, lack of love and affection, real health issues, dealing with a rather burdensome social and religious culture or anything like that could they?

No, "Mom" apparently believes that her son took his own life as an Adult because he didn't join the "Not Even Once Club" while a child!

I am saddened.

Exactly..those two statements stood out for me too.

Excellent summary

Seriously, this frump is still harping about Playboys her dead son found in middle school? What a vile piece of work she is.

"I wonder sometimes if for some Mormons who can't fully rebel and can't fully be Mormon then suicide is a more attractive option?"

Suicide definitely seemed like a welcome option in my life, especially since my mom always told me that my lack of spirituality was the cause of my depression (despite depression running in my biological family).

I think my "crisis of faith" saved my life. When I started doubting, I realized that there really wasn't any reason to beat myself up over ridiculous things. I still feel lonely, but at least I know there's a whole world outside of Mormonism once I strike out on my own.

It's still painful to lose my faith in a religion I grew up in and loved, but I guess that's how things are.

"It was that last identifier that often proved the most troublesome. Not only did Nathan Palmer have his own expectations, but worries about how he was being seen by the myriad other members of the LDS Church who were a part of his life."

I think this is a big reason why my nephew killed himself last year. Family and school expectations are one thing... Throw in all the big LDS expectations and it's a recipe for disaster.

Wow. That is extremely cold. What a terrible situation to be having so much difficulty and have a mother so incapable of expressing love.


She might just be making this all up in her head because it's too painful for her to confront the possibility that he had all these emotional struggles because of her parenting. So she creates another explanation. One that removes herself from blame.

Common tactic of the narcissist. Always the victim, never the aggressor.

Is it me or does she look like a red version of Grimace from McDonald's?

Nope, not just you. That is a very applicable description.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2015 04:24PM by Elder Berry.

This article really scares me. It's so sad. I've been suicidal for most of my life and still struggle with it... I feel like I could easily end up the topic of something like this. I hope my parents would have the decency to lay the blame on depression instead of my being "led astray" from religion.

It's especially terrible that she blames "pornography and other addictive things" as the thing that ruined the poor guy's life. She can't even consider that maybe, just maybe, her oppressive religion was what REALLY ruined his life.

But it was brought to mankind by God's heavenly messenger Moroni. It can't be bad.

Which is my MAIN problem with religion. There's simply no arguing with blind faith, and religious people are totally incapable of seeing the harm it can do.

A true disconnect from this man's mother. She didn't seem to truly accept him for many years. At least it reads that way in the news story.

She blamed her dead son for not working toward perfection vs being perfect. Perfect. No wonder he died.

Some of these men who kill themselves are gay; not an option in that world... Or, how many times did he hear at church, "on my mission, bla bla bla..." Righteousness = wealth... There are innumerable ways for "inferiority" in Mormonism.

Lisa Ling did an expose on Netflix about Mormons and rampant drug abuse. The ladies said perfectionism was self-imposed, knowing it is a giant spoken and implied impossible requirement in Mormonism.

I'm sorry your mother was similar to this mother, as were many of our mothers.

I was actually able to make a comment, I had a like, then it got tossed, looks like no comments.

So she is saying that pornography killed him? Seriously?

Very sick and while people kill themselves for many different reasons, she had part in his for sure.

I love how the article says below the pictures "she poses"

who poses for an article about suicide like that? Oh wait, it is because of the huge picture of Christ. Make sure everyone sees that.

She looks mean, hard. Lipstick and all. I'd like to beat her face in.

I've tried to kill myself more than a few times, so it must be the porn mags my sis showed me once when I was helping her move. They were hers, yuck. Whatever. That never came to mind when I was suicidal, though tscc did have a huge part.

Fuckers.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2015 12:13PM by kj.

non for this Wrote:
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> I love how the article says below the pictures
> "she poses ",who poses for an article about suicide like that?
> Oh wait, it is because of the huge picture of
> Christ. Make sure everyone sees that.

^^^I noticed this too. What a vile person posing as if so righteous and pious. From what the OP remembers she sounds like she was a source of his depression.

Porn didn't kill this young man. Nor did the devil, his struggles with perfectionism, the LDS church.

The article gives a peek into what may have happened here. Early problems in school, leading to an inability to graduate. Addiction or depressive episodes, it sounds like. Behavioral or anger issues, perhaps related to learning or cognitive issues, left untreated.

In this day and age, with what we know about depression (and cognitive and other developmental delays), what his teachers, doctors and parents should have known about them, I'd like to know why this quote, or one very much like it, is missing from this article:

"We took him to a therapist because he struggled so much in school, and had behavioral and anger issues that we knew were bad signs. Turns out he had learning delays that kept him from keeping up with his siblings and other kids his age.

Our church teaches that porn addiction is a terrible sin; but we knew porn alone couldn't account for our son's depression and inability to adapt, to cope with the world. When he didn't graduate, that was the final warning bell.

We gathered together as A FAMILY. We went with him to doctors, helped him stay on the medication they prescribed. We drove him to counseling appointments. Enrolled him in job training, helped him find employment. Kept him busy.

Later, we all went to family therapy because when one member of a family is seriously ill, it sometimes affects the entire family. We had avoided the issue for so long, hoping it would go away or wasn't as bad as we thought. Communication was poor. Coping skills were poor. There was a lot of dysfunction.

We learned that some other family members on both sides, had depression that was left untreated--which explains a few things to us, about them. It all clicked, and it finally made sense.
We went to learn as much about our son as we could but found out a lot about ourselves, too. Things are quieter and calmer at home now. We get along better; the kids do, too.

We did everything we could, to try and help our son. We prayed, took him to church, taught him right.

We wanted him to be healthy, to thrive, so we did whatever we thought was necessary to help him, to help him see that he could make success happen for himself. For him to learn that there is more to life than being so unhappy, miserable and depressed all the time. We talked to him about suicide and that this wasn't a way out. All the warning signs were there--so we were proactive."


How many young men and women have to die, because they never get the help they need? They may kill themselves, even so, because depression and severe mental illness may not allow them to think rationally-- or because they self medicate with alcohol or non prescription drugs, which actually deepen the depression, remove inhibitions to taking ones own life, or mire them in circumstances they cannot cope with. Their coping skills too poor, their self esteem too low, they find they are unable to manage. Their meds aren't working, their body chemistry is so unalterable, they think there's only one way out.

But to kill oneself when no one even tries to help, those closest to you don't care enough to try and identify what is truly going on? No one in authority with the skills to recognize the situation, tries to intervene?

To blame it on porn (and the influence of that friend at the arts center), on unworthiness, on lack of perfection, on the church demanding that of him, on the son failing t work hard enough to come back from the brink?

That's abuse. That's neglect. It's ignorance. And it's tragic.

I am sorry she lost her son. No mother wants to live through the death of her own child. I am not sorry she has shown herself to be a heartless, hardhearted woman. She's full of herself. Full of recriminations and blame for everyone else, but herself. No awareness at all that her faith or her family or she herself, weren't the best support systems this young man could have had.

Then she gallivants all over the place, telling HER story, HER opinion of what her child's struggles were. SHE places blame on porn, on church demands.

We never hear what her son felt, or said, or did, what he thought the matter was. How his life was going, what he felt he needed.


She can see evil in people, can she? I'll show her evil. All she need do is go look in a mirror.

+ a million!

Wow - very well stated!

There are so many GREAT things going on regarding suicide prevention in Utah-
too bad the Herald is merely the MiniMe of Deseret News. The article is so flawed. In trying to approach the subject of the LDS culture/church being the biggest reason for suicide in Utah, they dance around the issue and deny the existence of a problem within that population. Typical.
There are awesome people who are trying to open up communication:

1- Utah Coalition for Suicide Prevention just hosted a huge "Out of the Darkness" walk last weekend in SLC
2- Every school in Utah is now required to have a Prevention program as part of its curriculum
3- "Hope Squads" are either in place or being formed in all the schools
4- annonoymus phone help lines are being advertised

don't depend on Utah media to find out what's really going on in Utah!
BTW, Hispanic Christian churches are popping up everywhere in Utah Valley.
Which is great, but I wish they'd leave the spray paint in SoCal



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2015 12:06PM by Cahomegrown.

Cahomegrown Wrote:
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> 3- "Hope Squads" are either in place or being...

I hope they work wonders.

Unfortunately, my brother-in-law is the founder and executive director of Hope4Utah which is who created these squads.

He is a rabid TBM and social climber. He canned a man at the Provo Alternative High School simply for writing an anti-Mormon book.

I dislike the man intensely but to be fair I hope his hopes are realized if that is what he is doing and not just exploiting an opportunity from the disaster which is suicide prevention in Utah.

No one looks to the Mormon culture. It is the elevation that is causing them all.

I'm glad I'm not high on those mountain tops anymore. I've descended to Hellish worldly existence of the plains. Ironically, I live where Joseph Smith declared Zion to be.

Same situation, different people -

After my friend's suicide (second born, never measured up to big bro), his mother was positively relieved, through her fake grief. I always suspected that he was not her husband's son, and after his cremation, no one would ever find out.

She had the added bonus of playing the poor, bereaved mama, who had lost more than anyone. Absolutely sickening.